As we reach the end of 2025, it’s time for this column’s traditional year’s-end “stumpers” roundup. These are the questions that didn’t get solved or that still retain some mystery.
So this week and next, we’ll tackle the virtual mailbag together and try to shake out answers for the stubbornest queries of the year.
I remember a long, unstructured poem that was played before the national anthem and sign-off on a San Antonio TV station (can’t recall which) in the 1970s. It expressed the observations of a soldier over a career, and has recurring derisive references to “the Atlanta airport.” It was not the well-known “High Flight.” It was read by a man in a weathered voice and was not rhyming but narrative in form. I would guess the recording ran about 60-90 seconds.…